18
by serina-phantom
Summary: 9 years after the group suicide that claimed 17 lives, the same pattern is repeated. 18 students attempt suicide, only 17 die. Ryou Bakura must now save his best friend Malik, the new leader of the suicide group, from slipping further. With some help. BR
1. Prologue: Nine Years Ago

**Title**: 18

**Genre**: horror, romance

**Rating**: T for violence and language

**Pairings**: BakuraXRyou (mild others)

**Summary**: Nine years after the mass suicide that claimed 17 lives, the same mass suicide is attempted. However, out of the 18 students involved, a survivor is reported: Malik Ishtar. His best friend, Ryou Bakura, must now unveil the secret of the Mass Suicide and save Malik from falling deeper into it. But it's going to require the assistance of the only survivor of the Mass Suicide nine years ago, his 21 year old teacher, Bakura Touzoku.

Me: This is a horror story that I wanted to write! Inspired after the manga "Suicide Circle/Jisatsu Circle", because it was much less cynical than the movie! Much less gory and much easier to understand!

Lucy: This movie does contain character death, but only in the beginning and mostly near the end!

Me: We realize this might not be our best work, but the idea just stuck, and we wanted to write it up, so if you'll all be kind when you read it and not flame, that would be much appreciated!

Lucy: Enjoy this!

**_Prologue: Nine Years Ago_**

"This is Channel 7 Actions News with our breaking story for this evening! It would appear that 18 students have jumped from the top of Hongan Middle School in a collective suicide!"

Cars and ambulances rushed towards the scene, sloshing through a puddle of deep crimson blood. Sirens and red-blue lights flickered on and off, drowning out the noises of passing bystanders.

_Why...?_

Police gathered around, and bodies were put on stretchers. The bloody faces were twisted up and smashed, and some of were so misshapen that it was hard to believe they had ever been human.

_Why did this happen, dammit!?_

A teacher was startled into awareness by a soft shifting beside her. She glanced down and saw a figure rising up from the bloody tangle of bodies. The figure rose easily, and everyone instantly knew that he was unharmed.

His body, as well as his blue and white Middle school uniform, was covered in his classmates' blood, but he himself seemed fine. Silver hair was messy from the fall from several stories. His pale face was twisted up into a look of sorrow. His legs were shaking as he tried to keep himself up, hugging his arms as close as he could get them. He sniffled and closed his eyes, letting a few strings of tears slip through his closed lids.

"Touzoku-kun-!!" the teacher screamed.

_Why, Marik? Why did this happen? Tell me why..._

"This just in! It would appear that we have a survivor!! One of the 18 suicide victims has survived and is conscious!" The news crew was instantly near the silverette. They shoved microphones into his face, shouting questions at him. The young 12 year old just stared at the ground, his white bloody bangs covering his eyes.

The teacher leaped in between the young student and the countless onslaughter of news reporters. "How dare all of you!?" she screamed. The news crew fell silent. "This poor boy just survived a group suicide, he's covered in his friends' blood, and you're gonna question him!? Get the fuck out of here!!"

Camera shutters clicked and more questions were asked. The teacher flipped them off and turned her back on the cameras. She dropped to her knees and grabbed the 12 year old silverette by the shoulders.

Her golden eyes locked with his dull brown-purple ones. He was expressionless, tear-stains streaming down his cheeks. He was trembling, lips pulled into a tight line. The teacher brushed his bangs out of his eyes tenderly.

"Bakura, sweetie, what happened?" she whispered.

The silverette slowly glanced up and locked eyes with her. His lips didn't part as he looked to the side, gazing over the bodies that had belonged to his classmates. He scanned them over without a second glance until he spotted one body in particular lying near him. The closest body to his feet, whose blood was creeping towards him in thin trickles.

His best friend, Marik.

_Marik, why did this happen? Because you survived a mass suicide, you became a leader of a suicide group? Why?_

The tears started falling harder. 12 year old Bakura covered his eyes with his hands and shrieked. The teacher wrapped her arms around him and calmed him while he screamed and cried. She demanded that the body of Marik Ishtal be removed immediately so that Bakura didn't have to look at it anymore. The EMTs grabbed the body and put it into a body bag.

"No!" Bakura struggled and reached for the body bag.

"Bakura!" the teacher wrapped her arms around his chest and tried to keep him still. Bakura struggled and kicked out at her, biting and tearing at her arms. His small hand reached for the body bag.

"No-! Marik hates tight spaces! Take him out! Take him out!! You'll scare him-!" he shrieked, flailing. The EMTs ignored the silverette and zipped up the bag that held his spiky-haired Egyptian friend. "NO!! TAKE MARIK OUT OF THERE!! YOU'LL SCARE HIM! YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE HIM WANT TO JUMP AGAIN!! TAKE HIM OUT, TAKE HIM OUT, TAKE HIM OUT-"

Bakura stopped yelling when he realized that it was a lost cause. He watched as the EMTs threw the body bag into the ambulance, along with the others, and a few came to examine him. The EMTs brushed rubbing alcohol over his bloody face, washing the blood off and revealing that he wasn't wounded at all.

Bakura looked blankly towards the pre-teen bodies that he had emerged from. All of them were in a pile, the pile that had protected the fall from taking Bakura's young life away.

_They all became my shield. Why me...? _

"Son, are you okay?" a police officer touched Bakura's shoulder. The teacher smacked his hand away the moment he managed to make physical contact with the small boy. "Ma'am, what are you doing? You can't strike a police officer!"

"What kind of fucking _dumb ass_ question is that!?" the teacher spat, eyes narrowed. "He just watched 17 of his classmates commit a suicide, he was involved, he's the only survivor, he's coated in human remains and blood that's not his own, and you think he's fucking _okay_!?"

While the two bickered, Bakura drifted back in his memories.

He remembered when he had gone up to the roof, where he knew Marik and his group were. He remembered opening the door and having a cloth thrown over his mouth. He remembered falling unconscious, and then awakening to find himself standing in a circle of 17 people, all of them surrounding Marik.

Marik had looked to Bakura with a smile.

"_You're in my inner circle, Bakura. Come stand next to me._"

Bakura was pushed into the center of the circle, the chloroform that had been over his mouth still in his lungs. Marik grabbed him and smiled down at his twelve year old best buddy. Bakura remembered gulping under Marik's possessed gaze. His eyes were dull, and there wasn't the amount of life that Bakura was use to seeing.

_"I'll be 13 in a minute. So, hold my hand 'till then?_"

Bakura remembered Marik grabbing his hand and stepping towards the edge of the roof. The 16 other students all locked hands and stepped on top of the railing, their toes inches off the edge. Bakura glanced down and saw the ground several stories below them. He felt his legs trembling, not because of the chloroform.

He took one horrified glance at Marik, who was smiling.

"_Smile, Bakura. This is it._"

That was the last thing Marik had said directly to him. Bakura then felt the 17 others, Marik included, start swinging their arms back and forth, chanting something that made Bakura's heart almost stop.

"_A-one... A-two... A-three..._"

Bakura felt them all crouch down, dragging him with them. His purple-brown eyes darted around to his spiky haired friend. Marik was glancing towards the ground, a smile on his lips.

_"A-jump!!"_

They then leaped off the building, and Bakura felt himself go airborne. No one screamed through, no one even cheered. It was almost silent, so silent that it was suffocating.

Bakura glanced sideways and saw Marik smiling at him. Marik squeezed his hand, and they talked. Bakura forgot his terrors for a moment, and just talked to his friend. Marik was truly his friend, not the possessed-acting young man that was the leader of the suicide group.

Marik was back to the way he was before he was involved in that suicide group, where he was put into a similar situation as Bakura, and was the only survivor out of 18. The other 17 died upon impact.

"_I don't want this, Marik! I'm never going to see you again!_"

"_Bakura, don't say such depressing things. Right now is a happy time!_"

The ground was starting to come closer.

"_I guess so. Hey, we'll see each other in Heaven right?_"

"_No, Bakura. No, we won't._"

"_E-eh?_"

The ground was merely feet away now. Only about a story and a half to the ground. Marik flashed Bakura his trade-mark smirk, and for a moment, Bakura thought he saw tears in the boy's eyes.

"_Bakura, we won't see each other for a long time._"

Bakura felt Marik's hand detach from his own. The other hand next to him clung on, but loosely. Bakura saw Marik push him away, and there became a huge gap in between them. Bakura reached for Marik, but the spiky haired blond Egyptian just smiled and gave him the peace-sign and a small laugh. Bakura truly did see tears in his friend's eyes.

"_Because... I'm sure that... You will-_"

Marik never finished.

Halfway through his statement, his head hit the ground. There was a sickening snap, and his face vanished into a sea of blood. Bakura suddenly felt a harsh impact rack his body, and darkness stretched across his vision. He could feel countless lumps under him, the elbows and knees and bodies of his classmates, who had formed underneath him in a human shield.

Tears swelled in his eyes at the memory.

"This just in! Bakura Touzoku managed to survive this 18 way suicide! This just in..."

_Why did you protect me? Why was I the only one to survive?_

Life wasn't quite the same for Bakura after the suicide.

Everywhere he went, people would murmur about him, especially the adults. But the students in his school, the ones that had wanted to be part of Marik's suicide group, but were too afraid, started forming a large circle around him, chanting things.

They called Bakura a god.

_Am I a god?_

Bakura hated it. He hated being called a god. He hated the group of suicidal students cutting their wrists and showing him, shouting that they wanted his blessings, for him to lead them to a proper suicide. He hated how they swelled around him and did everything for him. They carried his bag for him, got him food, and even when he told them to stop, they formed a protective wall around him and walked him home.

Soon, the group of three students soon swelled into a group of seventeen.

Bakura hated walking through the halls. His gang of seventeen worshippers would be right at his heels, but none of them called him by his name, or even by his last name.

They called him their leader, and some of them even started calling him Mazaki. That was what annoyed Bakura the most.

Mazaki was the last name of the first person to lead a suicide group of seventeen other students to jump off a building. She was the first person to even start this trend of suicides.

_Mazaki... That's what they called me._

Finally, Bakura had enough of it.

_I'd had enough._

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! ALL OF YOU!!"

The seventeen followers fell silent at the look of hatred in Bakura's eyes. He grabbed his backpack and books from the people who had taken them off him, saying that as his followers, they would carry his books and ease his burden.

"Mazaki-sama?" one of them piped in.

"Stop-!!" Bakura shouted, covering his ears with his hands. "I've had enough already! My name isn't fucking Mazaki! It's Bakura Touzoku! And I'm not some suicide sage! I'm not a leader of a suicide group! I'm just a 12 year old who wants to forget all about that fucking suicide! So why don't all of you just leave me the Hell alone!?"

Ignoring them and anything they said, Bakura turned and rushed away, leaving the seventeen of them in the dust. When some of them started to follow after him, shouting "Mazaki-sama" and "Mazaki-sama, come back", Bakura spun and glared at them.

"If you wanna die so bad, go fucking jump in front of a moving train! Go ahead for all I care!! But I am _not_ going with you!" he hollered. He was certain that people all over town had heard him.

_I'm not going with you..._

_Huh..._

_I really did say that to them..._

"B-but, Mazaki-sama..." The followers had long since stopped chasing Bakura as he ran down the streets. They reached for Bakura's retreating form, until he was out of sight.

"We can't do it without 18..." one of them whispered.

"And we can't do it without the survivor. Without our leader. Without the one... that Mazaki-sama possessed."

But no matter what they said, Bakura didn't come back. He even avoided coming to school for as long as he could just to make sure that they got the message that he didn't want to be anywhere near them. Finally, when he returned to school, some of them had given up on suicide, while about five of them still wanted to follow him. But that eventually stopped.

_Go jump in front of a moving train..._

_Huh..._

_If only I had realized the mistake I had made my saying something that fucking dumb._

Bakura had gone through the rest of the school year without being bothered. Whenever someone asked him about the suicide, he dismissed it and told them that it was none of their fucking business.

_How was I supposed to know that someone who claimed to be Mazaki was going to attempt it nine years later?_

But while he thought the suicide group had ceased when he refused to be "Mazaki" and lead another suicide group, what he failed to realize was that someone else was going to attempt it. He failed to see that Mazaki has a plan on who she wanted to make the next leader of the suicides. Someone who wasn't Bakura. Someone... better suited.

_How was I supposed to know that the suicide groups would start up again?_

Someone who would make him pay for ignoring her suicide group tradition.

_How...?_

_But I swear to you, whoever you are, be you the next survivor of the 18 Suicide, I will save you! _

_I will protect you from Mazaki's suicidal spirit, and I will protect you from becoming the next leader of a suicide group!_

_I promise this on my soul._

_I'll save this person..._

_Like I could never do for my best friend Marik._

* * *

Me: Poor Bakura! Having to go through something like that! But, it's all part of the story, so he'll get his moment of glory later on in the story, so no one worry about a thing!

Lucy: But this leads into the next scene of the story!

Me: Please don't flame! We know it's not our best, but we did try! So please review if you liked it, and if not, just leave and don't read it! Thank you all so much, guys!


	2. Moving Train

**Title**: 18

**Genre**: horror, romance

**Rating**: T for violence and language

**Pairings**: BakuraXRyou (mild others)

**Summary**: Nine years after the mass suicide that claimed 17 lives, the same mass suicide is attempted. However, out of the 18 students involved, a survivor is reported: Malik Ishtar. His best friend, Ryou Bakura, must now unveil the secret of the Mass Suicide and save Malik from falling deeper into it. But it's going to require the assistance of the only survivor of the Mass Suicide nine years ago, his 21 year old teacher, Bakura Touzoku.

Me: This is the first chapter of the story "_18_"! You can probably guess where it got its title!

Lucy: So, for your entertainment, please enjoy the story, and do not flame it! It was inspired by the manga "Suicide Circle", also called "Jisatsu Circle" in the Japanese version!

Me: This chapter takes place 9 years in the future from when the prologue took place!

Lucy: Please enjoy this chapter!

**_Chapter One: Moving Train_**

"Hey?"

_Hey..._

"Do you know Mazaki?"

_Mazaki..._

"You mean that legend of the girl who started the 18 Suicide group all those years ago? Yeah. Why?"

_Did you ever hear..._

"I heard that Mazaki's spirit possesses the survivor of the 18 Suicide group and makes them start the cycle all over again! And then, when her host dies, she possesses the survivor of the new group and warps their minds until all they wanna do is start a suicide group."

_That if you die with 18 people..._

"I hard that. Do you believe in it?"

"Of course not! Who would be so fucking dumb as to believe in something like that?

_Your spirit will live on and you can possess the survivor?_

The Domino Subway was a bustle with many people. Most of them were business people who were getting ready to go to work. Some were parents touring Domino with their children. The children all looked excited and happy for their first time riding the train. Some of them seemed bored as Hell, reading the newspaper. The train was almost late.

No one seemed to notice the eighteen students that came walking down the stairs, towards the train tracks. Each of them were dressed in Domino High School uniforms, and they were all around the age of 17-18 years old.

They walked towards the train tracks and stood near the curb.

They started murmuring to themselves, laughing and wondering what they were going to do. One of them stood with his ear facing towards the darkness of the tunnel, listening for when the train came. They waited, and waited, just speaking.

They giggled and glanced around, murmuring amongst themselves. They spoke about school, tests, and stuff along those lines. They laughed at some of the stuff they spoke of, and it went on for hours. It was hard to believe that anything evil could possibly come from such nice young students, eagerly waiting for their train.

Finally, the ground started rumbling gently, signaling that the train was coming.

The boy who was watching for the train turned and smiled to his seventeen friends. "Here we go, guys," he smiled. The others chanted and cheered, but then they let it die down into silence.

_Here we go..._

Their hands interlocked, and they formed along the curb. The people in the subway station glanced towards them and murmured about what was going on. The seventeen students turned and faced the people, flashing them big grins. For a moment, people believed that they were taking a group photo, the way they were smiling and laughing.

"What's with them?"

"They taking a photo or something?"

"They tourists?"

The students laughed to one another and waited, waving their arms back and forth, their hands still locked together. They were wagging back and forth, dancing to their own little silent tune.

The train was coming ever so close.

"One..."

_A-one..._

"Two..."

Arms started swinging back and forth a bit faster, smiling faces towards the citizens of the subway.

_A-two..._

"Three..."

Knees bent, and smiles widened, flashing white teeth like diamonds. The ground was shaking violently now. Eyes were wide with sadistic pleasure, and the eighteen students were giggling amongst themselves.

_A-three..._

"A-JUMP!!"

_A-jump..._

The gang leaped backwards, just as the train came surging through at a break-neck speed.

"_If you all want to die, why not go jump in front of a moving train?!_"

Blood spewed everywhere.

_It's such a blood mess, but it gets the job done._

Screams of horror filled the subway as people rushed towards the curbs to see what had happened. Children were screaming as blood soaked towards them, having splattered upward and landed on the walls and on the front of the curb, managing to land in only a certain section. The train was covered, scattering the bodies and their pieces around as it went.

_It happened again... Why did it happen again?_

"This just in! 9 years after the 18 Suicides finally ceased, it would appear that eighteen students have hurled themselves in front of a moving train here at the Domino Subway Station!"

Cameras and news people surrounded the bloody curb, not bothering to show the bloody, mutilated bodies that rested on the train tracks below. The blood was enough to show what had happened.

"It appears to be based off of the suicides that took place nine years ago. The end of the 18 Suicides. The same chain of mass suicides that left single survivor, Bakura Touzoku, haunted with memories that he won't tell us about! According to eyewitnesses, the eighteen students chanted and smiled as they jumped into the path of the train. It has been labeled as a group suicide, and signaled as the revival of the famous 18 Suicides that took place a little over ten years ago."

A tangle of bodies lay at the base of the train, where it had stopped. It didn't want to keep dragging the bodies and mutilating them anymore than it should have.

The bodies laid in mass tangles, some of them missing limbs, some of them wrapped around one another. It was disgusting to behold, and the smell of iron made people in the subway vomit.

"This just in! We have a survivor!"

The cameras dashed immediately towards the curb, ignoring the fact that they didn't want to show the mutilated fields of blood and body parts that laid tangled all around the train tracks. The cameras glanced towards the front of the train, towards the biggest tangle of five bodies, just in time to see one of them standing.

_Mass suicide..._

A young man of 17 years old stood before the tangle of four other bodies, his body coated in their blood. His school uniform was mutilated, yet somehow, he didn't have so much as a fresh scratch on his pale mocha skin.

His hands were covering his face, his platinum blond hair plastered down with thick, iron-scented blood. His shoulders were shaking with horrible sobs, and he choked the lump in his throat. A little patch of scars covered his legs, but the scars were old. Other than those, he wasn't wounded in any way possible.

"Hic... sob..."

He coughed as he glanced out towards the dead bodies. He ignored all the others except for one that lied before him, right in front of the train. He sobbed and glanced away, unable to look anymore.

"M-Mazaki...-sama..." he whispered.

_The 18 Suicide..._

_Has it really started again after all these years?_

About a week after the train mass suicide, the survivor stood on the roof of his school. Domino High. He had gotten a new school uniform, since his was stained with his friends' blood. He stood on the edge of the school building, looking down, his toes merely inches off the edge. His orchid eyes flashed.

"MALIK!!"

The survivor glanced over his shoulder and spotted his best friend, Ryou Bakura, rushing towards him. Horror was written in his green-brown eyes, and his white hair whipped around in the wind. He wore the same blue uniform as Malik did, only his was closed up, rather than revealing the shirt that he wore under it.

"Ryou...-chan," Malik whispered.

Ryou rushed up and reached for Malik's hand. He panted and lurched over, using one hand to keep himself from collapsing. Ryou was never very athletic, even though he was incredibly thin and fit. He was thin in a good way. Sweat streamed down his forehead.

"M-Malik... don't do it. Please don't jump," Ryou panted.

Malik stared at Ryou with a vacant expression for the longest time. His mocha lips were drawn into a thin line, orchid eyes scanning Ryou's horrified look. After a moment, Malik giggled and stepped down from the edge of the roof. He heard Ryou's sigh of relief. Malik reached up and tapped Ryou's shoulder.

"You think I'd commit suicide like this? I need 17 others before I can do this. That's what Mazaki-sama did," the Egyptian said with a chuckle.

Ryou snarled and slapped Malik's hand off his shoulder. "ENOUGH! I'VE HEARD QUITE ENOUGH OF FUCKING MAZAKI, ALL RIGHT?!" he shrieked. His Egyptian friend gasped and took a step back.

_Mazaki..._

"If you'd recall," Ryou spat bitterly. "Mazaki's name wasn't originally that. His name was originally Hiro Seika, until he started that stupid little group! He then changed his name to Mazaki. And now... now this shit happened! Enough, Malik! Mazaki's dead! Get over it!"

Malik smiled at Ryou instantly.

"Oh, simple little Ryou," he laughed. "Why don't you just face facts? Why don't you join me? I mean... I'm going to continue what Mazaki started, so, if you want, you can join me. I need 17 others, after all, or it won't work."

Ryou drew away.

"Why the fuck would I do something like that, Malik!?" he shrieked.

Malik was still smiling. "Because it will make you feel better. I felt like crap until Mazaki came and freed my mind. And now, I have never felt better. It doesn't hurt anymore, no matter what happens. I see you struggling, Ryou-chan. And I want to help you, no matter what. So, why won't you come and join me? The pain will stop."

Malik reached for Ryou, but his hand was smacked away by the trembling whitenette.

Malik glanced up and frowned slightly at the tears of fear he spotted in Ryou's eyes. He reached to wipe them away, but Ryou drew away before Malik could get any closer to him.

"W-who are you?" Ryou whispered. Malik raised a fine platinum eyebrow in confusion. Ryou stepped back. "W-who the fuck are you!? Where's my friend Malik?! What have you done with Malik!? You fucking suicidal monster!!"

"Oh, Ryou-chan," Malik breathed, reaching for his friend.

"DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!! YOU'RE NOT MALIK!!" Ryou shouted, turning and rushing back down the stairs, tears streaming down his cheeks. He had kept his cool for as long as he could. He couldn't hold it any longer, it was too painful. That vacant look, that strange smile, those possessed eyes, his voice...

Ryou cried harder at the thought.

_We used to be friends, Malik. So close..._

_Malik and I were best friends when we first met. He and I told each other everything._

He remembered when he and Malik met in the sandbox as children. They had clicked instantly, and they had been together ever since. They were never romantically involved, nor did they want to be.

They were just the best of friends. Nothing tore them apart.

_Malik had grown up with family problems. His father and he didn't get along too well in the beginning. Malik hated his father, to be honest._

_That all changed when Malik's father fell deathly ill._

Ryou remembered Malik rushing towards him one day at school in tears. He had grabbed onto Ryou and sobbed for countless hours. Ryou hadn't known what to say. He just held him and stroked his back while his best friend cried.

Malik had told him that his father was really ill, and that he didn't think that they had enough money to be able to afford the medical expenses. He started crying again when he told Ryou what he had done to be able to get enough money to help his father.

He had resorted to prostitution.

Ryou hadn't slapped him like he had wanted to. He was seething with rage, but after seeing how upset Malik was, Ryou just kept hugging him and telling him that it was okay.

It was shortly after that time that Ryou began to notice the fresh scars on Malik's wrists.

_Malik... started cutting himself, along with selling his body._

Ryou had tried to talk some sense into him, but Malik hadn't listened. He just told Ryou that it was his body and he could do with it as he pleased. He would argue with Ryou about it for hours, and it would always end with one of them being so angry that they would storm off and not speak to each other until the next day, then the fight was usually forgotten.

Ryou tried to get Malik other work, but nothing paid quite like the job that Malik had resorted to. And soon, Malik just seemed to start losing his emotions. Each day Ryou saw him, it was as if Malik was losing a piece of his personality.

_It was around that time that Malik met Mazaki..._

Ryou recalled when Malik had become friends with a kid in their school named Mazaki. Mazaki was a student who had changed his last name to match that of the girl who had started the 18 Suicides about ten or eleven years ago.

Ryou started noticing that Malik was acting strange.

He was smiling all the time, and though he was still hacking away at his wrists, he was smiling during the whole thing. Ryou would often yell at him and wonder what was going through his mind, but Malik would just giggle and say, "If you wanna find out, join Mazaki's group. We still need a few more people."

_I was useless. I couldn't stop him. He slipped into the darkness._

_But..._

_Even though Malik was still selling his body and cutting his wrists..._

_He was always smiling._

* * *

Me: Okay! So, this is the first chapter in the story, and Malik is already gone bye-bye in the head!

Lucy: What will our poor little Ryou do now that his friend is going bye-bye in the head? Will he be able to save his friend from the darkness that is known as the 18 Suicide?

Me: Please review nicely or not at all! We hope to have the next chapter updated as soon as we can!


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